Part Three The Final Words of my High HOlidays Musings September 30, 2022

Yom Kippur is called The day of Repentance or the Day of Return. Rabbi Pilchik of Temple B'nai Jeshurun in Short Hills, NJ, called this Day of Atonement the Day of at-one-ment, where we all come together as one and say the words of all the inequities we have uttered in the name of the diety to be abolished, whether we have said them willingly or under duress, in public or in private, under whatever stress we have found ourselves during the past year.

I generally see this confession as our way of forgiving ourselves and the diety for all of our losses, failures and disappointments which prompt us to take the name of the diety in vain.

For me, when I drop the eggshell into the matzo ball mixture with the eggs, I often say " Oh shit!"

I am reminded of that epithet when I remember my first-born son saying just those words at age 18 months as he mistakenly hit his thumb with his toy hammer and wooden pegs.

"Oh sugar," said I, the contrite mother. "No, Mommy," he replied sweetly, "Oh shit."

It is actually a very good epithat. It is a universal activity which occurs internally and is only observed by the senses when it is expelled and completed. It is a necessary and important part of our digestive systems and of little importance when it occurs regularly with no effort, but which takes on immeasurable importance when it occurs at an inopportune moment or place or when encountered by someone or something else in an inappropriate place.

So much for being extremely literal. Getting rid of our negative feelings from the past year is therapeutic. We can then be grateful for our smaller successes, both individually and as a society and work to be available to try once more, to follow the rule adoped by AA . To accept what cannot be changed, to change what can be changed and to learn to know the difference.